“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
Starving artists know that birthdays mean free drinks at the bar. Today we toast to Ernest Hemingway, who would’ve turned 115 years old yesterday.
Hemingway had a bit of a reputation as a drinker. “I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure,” he wrote to the Russian translator and critic Ivan Kashkin. He and James Joyce used to toss back drink after drink together, though in that same 1935 letter to Kashkin he said alcohol wasn’t beneficial to writing. He was always a drinker, but after getting injured in a plane crash he drank even more heavily.
More than a few articles have been written about Hemingway’s drinking:
- 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Ernest Hemingway’s Drinking Habits (via Food Republic)
- The Passionate Affair Between Alcohol and Ernest Hemingway: The Paris Years (via Modern Drunkard)
- How to Drink, the Hemingway Way (via Salon)
- Why Do Writers Drink? (via The Guardian)
- Hemingway and Me, at the Bar (via The Washington Post)
Being an alcoholic is probably not the reputation anyone wants. No one wants to be dependent on alcohol. It can destroy your life and the lives around you. If you drink, drink responsibility. But there’s no shame in not drinking either!
Hemingway’s favorite drink was a martini, but he was also closely associated with mojitos and daiquiris. I thought a daiquiri would make a great summertime drink, so here’s the Starving Artist Hemingway Daiquiri recipe:
2 ounces white rum
¾ ounces lime juice
½ ounce grapefruit juice
¼ ounce maraschino liqueur
Blend these altogether with a cup of ice. Who has time and money for fancy garnishes like maraschino cherries and lime wedges? Drink this sucker from whatever glass you have clean as you sit on your stoop, defining your own generation.
You might also like these other posts from my blog:
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 
May we add our humble blog to the list of publications about Hemingway’s drinking? If you are interested we collected a whole bunch of famous people in history who were quite fund of the bottle. Love the blog btw.
Cheers,
Micky
http://lordsofthedrinks.com/drunks-that-made-world-history/
Micky, thanks for adding your blog to the list! I see that you even have a whole section devoted to poetry and drinking. Very fun!
Oh yes! I think the both are very close connected. Thanks a lot!
Greetings,
Micky